bacchanalia
by waltz2
Summary: would you like an invitation to the after-party, rosinante? – immortals!doflacora; au.


**bacchanalia**

(noun, plural Bacchanalia, Bacchanalias: 1. a festival in honor of Bacchus. 2. (lowercase) a drunken feast; orgy.)

_would you like an invitation to the after-party, rosinante? –_ immortals!doflacora; au.

disclaimer applies.

Rosinante has many names despite being a man of few words. They stick to his skin like bite marks, visible to those who know where to look, to those who put them there. Over time – and gods know he has plenty, he's gotten better at hiding them, forgetting them and eventually some names themselves are forgotten, in temple ruins and on abandoned altars. He lights a cigarette, leans against the wall and watches the club entrance comfortably from his spot in the shadows. The wall is cold and his shoulder starts to ache after a while. Smoke curls along his flared nostrils and the sharp contours of his face. He shakes his right hand automatically, a jerk of the wrist; a clump of ash drops off and splats onto the ground; in front of his expensive almost clownish dress shoes ; the ones he bought decades ago during a visit to Florence.

Some people start shouting, the impassive bouncer falls into action, the queue gets quite rowdy when two drunk girls are escorted to the edge of the curb. Rosinante drops his cigarette. Less luck this time as the ash splatters all over the tip of his right shoe. He clacks his tongue childishly and crouches down to wipe his shoe clean but almost loses his balance in the progress. Typical, the thought trespasses his mind and gets away scot-free as he collides against the wall. What's another bruise to his patchwork of bruised skin? Rhetorical question, he's always been clumsy. His cigarette butt rolls away whimsically on the asphalt. It sort-of reminds him of that plastic bag in American Beauty, one of the few movies he bothered watching in a movie theater. Rosinante supposes he's finally getting old, promptly remembers his even older mother's words about "youth is in the heart". Child at heart, he remains then.

Modern cities smell different than before, he surmises as his nostrils wrinkle in distaste, and yet.. Perhaps it's this narrow alleyway with its flickering light, hanging above the emergency exit of some jewelry store's backside. Only offerings are the inside of an open garbage can with its lid pressed between the can itself and the wall. Rosinante stands, at first a tad unsteadily on his feet, then more confidently and eventually he moves forwards, out in the open. His reddened lips curl into a cheshire-cat grin as he dips his head low and stuffs his hands into the pockets and walks to the pedestrian's crossing close-by. The light turns red before he arrives and the steady hum of the car engines whirls into acceleration as they drive off. He rocks on the balls of his feet as he waits impatiently. It's been a while, he thinks to himself, tilting his head from right to left to right. Already, the music of the club – music he can't hear yet but _feel_ in his veins and between his ears, makes its way through his limbs.

This street serves as a corridor between two boulevards and consists mainly out of convenience stores, bars, that one club and the odd clothing or accessory shop. He looks back at the traffic light, a sight so common these days he momentarily forgets how relatively new this is, to him and to society as a whole. Somewhere further down the street, there's the sound of glass breaking, followed by angry shouting. His posture sags, -and blinking red eventually switches to green and one lonesome cab comes to a halt in front of the white markings. The car engine hums, like a timeless soundtrack, and he spots the driver tapping his fingers impatiently on the driving wheel. It's close to midnight by now and he absentmindedly thinks back to the last time he's eaten something substantial out of necessity.

Olives spring to mind and in association come images of a courtyard, corinthian pillars, chests carved in stone and marble, crosses made from wood in concealed altars, clear water from fountains and salt-water oysters being served as hors-d'oeuvre. Never been able to open them without slicing his own hand open – big brother always had to… He smiles despite himself, thinking _those were the days_. Bygones be bygones. Rosinante walks past a young centurion and an even younger cleopatra waiting in line to get inside the club. He's technically on the street instead of the sidewalk and some people are grumbling at him while others are outright ignoring him.

One or two yell: _hey clownboy get back in line would'ya? _All are in costume, including himself. There's a Latin saying about situations like these but it's been ages. How did it go again, how did it ring true? _fallaces sunt_.. Lost on the tip of his tongue. He's almost at the club's entrance. _rerum species.. _How quickly people forget the last part, that they dash the hopes of men. Venice or Venice Beach, the masks change but the lies stay the same. The bouncer stares him down when he makes it to the red velveteen ribbon. Disappointedly the man isn't in costume, unless stereotypes of his profession count. Rosinante smiles politely and the reddish paint makes the expression grotesque. More people at the front of the line are starting to complain, gauging him and his thrown-together costume up with their twenty-first century unimpressed gazes.

"Name." He drawls, doing his utmost best to ignore that he has to look up a bit. At least his biceps are twice-thick those of the clown, the bouncer undoubtedly consoles himself.

So many to pick from and where has he hidden them?—Folktale figures, contemporary pop culture hits, forgotten myths in dead tongues, _someone jog his memory for him he's out of breath. _Rosinante picks one with weight, punctuated by a sharp nod of the head as if to assure them both that _yes, this one will do just __**fine**__. _It works like a charm and the bouncer unclicks the ribbon to make way for him after a quick glance at the list; the gesture almost comes off as grand but falls flat in the stilted movements of the bouncer himself; Rosinante pulls his sleeve down in habit, as if to conceal something someone has left on his wrist; bite mark. One last glance at the crowd outside and he enters. Abandon all hope, the words flash across his eyes but when he blinks they disappear, abandoned him all by themselves those literary bastards. Trick of the light: lightbulbs hanging on walls hidden behind scallop shells. He blinks again.

Venus in furs waits there to take his coat, wearing a maid uniform herself, cigarette between her plush gloss-slicked lips. Pretty picture if not a bit sorrowful, sadness seeps into her shoulders and the strict line of her nose, and Rosinante can almost smell the salty sobs in her story. Someone should give that girl a compliment, but he has no kindness to spare at this precious moment. She watches him intently as if instructed that this guest needs special attention, her fingers take the cigarette and her mouth forms an capslock 'O'. His fingers itch, twitch, thrum onto the outline of his own package of cigarettes in the pocket of his pants. Half-lidded eyes with maybe-maybelline mascara lashes, a tilt of the head, signaling loudly and clearly even more so than the enveloping evocative music: _to the staircase it is. _

He eases into the scenery, hauls a hand through his mop of blond hair as he observes the mob of people: they grind into each other, arms bent around necks and legs sometimes hooked around waists, eye only for one another, heads thrown backwards showing off sweaty skin; they drink and toast and drop their plastic shot glasses in something akin to triumph, trample the remains under their feet as they shoot back into action as the music demands; music so distinctively different from what he remembers before, no more lutes nor flutes nor harps. His reflection laughs in ill humor, in self-depreciation from the mirrors attached to the opposite wall and he thinks that perhaps he should've dressed as a horse instead of a clown because a certain passed-away author might've found the irony in that, witty as the the author himself was.

Another song seamlessly tags along the tail of the previous one and a couple of young guys bump into him in their enthusiasm to make it to the dancefloor, gleeful in their youth and impatient as well. He looks up at the dj booth, decorated with fake grape vines curling along the iron poles and there the modern-day bacchus stands, dances, with a pink boa slung around his shoulders and his cooler-than-you shades on. Shedding zeus' swan feathers as he moves, harsh-purple glitter in the hollow of his collarbone, simultaneous more ancient than this entire city and more gorgeous than these caricatures of women and men thrown together. His brother unseen for over a hundred-forty years and he's instinctively prompted to a poem by that sweet-voiced maiden ((_parthenon aduphonon_, in greek, but that's a language he hardly uses anymore.)): _to me he seems like a god_ in one translation, _in my eyes he matches the gods_ in another. Whatever they are – vampires, ghouls, maenads, ancients, gods, elysium or eden sprites, not-living or not-dead; they wax and wane together like the moon's tidings. He makes his way to the booth.

Doflamingo spots him, pushes the frame of his sunglasses down and beckons him with a crooked index finger. Seems to lilt: little brother are you here to play? His grin is wide-stretched and sharp-toothy, and the boa slithers sensually along his shoulders as he moves to the beat. Arms open in welcome. Rosinante stumbles and braces himself by holding harshly onto the railing. Lion's den, jaw full of fangs. His brother's button-up is unbuttoned, pants are hanging low, his pronounced hipbones, sharp enough to sharpen a knife on, are on full display. He remembers playing-pretend in cathedrals, plucking at rosary beads, saying grace and amen; remembers how he once thought them – his family fallen angels; remembers getting fucked on an altar, twisting the white linen between his fists. _behold your sons, holy mother, déesse. _Jesus weeping on his cross, bloody feet and hands with iron nails running in. Rosinante stares at his older brother in slight trepidation.

"Brother-mine." Doflamingo greets, mouth close to his left ear because the music is just too fucking loud to hear one another otherwise. "_mi corazón._" Palm pressed onto his upper-arm, breath hot on the shell of his ear.

He chokes out his brother's nickname -_Doffy _as the button of a nose brushes against his cheek. Someone, a girl with green feathers dangling from both ears, grins at them before slipping back into the dancing crowd, holding a glass of champagne casually in her hand. There are only arms raised to the ceiling because the music asks them to, the opposing wall and the flashing lights in front of his eyes, but from his peripheral his brother lurks, lingers.

"Have you come to be forgiven, _corazón_?" – comes the inevitable question as the might-be-stolen invitation burns a hole in the breast pocket of his vest, the pink feathers of his brother's boa tickle the nape of his neck.

Hours spent on knees during mass, hands folded in fake-prayer, eyes coveting the image of the messiah. His older brother on his left, elbow to elbow, a serpentine smile spun on well-known lips, the same one he dons right now. _forgive me father for i have sinned. _Rosinante places the much-needed distance between them as he takes a step to the right and plucks the joker card from his pocket, flings it at Doflamingo's feet. Underneath the red-orange-yellow flicker lights, the cursive 'cordially invited to…" changes colors ever so lightly. The joker's image gets trampled by a zebra-striped dress shoe, a palm pushes onto his collar bones, pushes him against the wall. Some people automatically make way to watch, but Doflamingo gives them a wave as dismissal, ruffled feathers and furrowed brows, and they back off as if in trance. Their backs turn to the brothers.

"_Rosinante_." He hisses venomously in warning – _do not make a fool out of me in my sanctuary_, before easing the pressure and smoothing over his appearance. His hair has gotten so much shorter. He continues more amicably, "Come now, we have much to discuss."

They worm their way through the crowd and Rosinante spots many a face he instinctively feels he should recognize or which recognizes him, and he uncomfortably drags down the sleeve over his wrist. Doflamingo leads him to a room behind the bar, shoos a couple of gentlemen away – who look dashing in their pin-striped suits and hide behind a card games' symbol; clubs, spades and diamonds; no hearts; not anymore. Soundproofed, a table with a bucket of champagne bottles and ice, a divan and a couple of chairs. His older brother motions towards the divan, seeming to say _sit sit, dearest. _He does so, but with a hint of chagrin tugging the corners of his self-drawn chelsea smile downwards.

Doflamingo wraps the fluffy boa a couple of times around his neck, like a diva, and stares him down, bluish-gray eyes peering from behind purple shades. "So why are you here, then?" Emphasis on the 'then' with a tilt of the head. "If _not_ for my forgiveness. I wonder.. Fufufu."

"I will not apologize for saving a child's life, Doffy." He answers, trying to come across as level-headed even if he's a tad shaken up. "We should put this behind us." His voice is scratchy, he hasn't had something to drink since this afternoon.

He remembers the stench of the Thames flooding his nostrils in waves as he boarded the ship, holding a tiny kid's fist in his hand. Overlooking the city and the smoke coming from the factories. Sailors swearing up a storm underneath their breath as they manned their stations. Little Law trying to peer above the railing, complaining and silently crying. Running away on a Monday morning, with nothing more than a suitcase and a stolen child.

"Put this behind us? You _betrayed _me, Rosinante." The indignation in his tone crackles like electricity through wires, then mercury-quick he's on his level, hands on his shoulders, putting him to his back on the divan as he spits, "Your own _flesh and blood_. And for what? A scrawny mortal runt."

The insult makes something snap and soon enough he's up right again, pushing back, fingers curled around slender sun-kissed wrists. Some pink feathers eddy to the ground. Doflamingo growls when blunt nails scrape against his skin.

"Do not." He begins, angry and heated, "talk about Law like that!" It's difficult to press forward when he has his older brother's entire weight against him.

Doflamingo grits out, "You were mine first!" Here he abruptly lets go, pulls back his arms and holds them stiffly by his sides as he marches over to the small table with the drinks. Some half-full glasses stand there, forlorn.

"Are you satisfied?" His brother inquires, airily almost, as he sweeps the champagne flutes onto the ground. There's a barrage of glass shattering and it makes him wince as the sound bounces around in the room. "Your precious child has grown and grown and died." He looks almost coyly over his shoulder as he says this, "Did you have _fun_, corazón? Running from me."

Rosinante drops his hands between his slightly-spread knees, curved forwards, as forlorn as the glasses before they were destroyed. "At least I gave him the chance to _grow_, Doffy." His sentence was soft, but did not go unheard.

"I would've worked around his illness eventually, patron of _thieves_." He remarks coolly, completely contrary-wise to his previous demeanor. Rosinante always had trouble walking the thin line between his brother's madness and calm. He's always had trouble walking straight period.

"Champagne?" Doflamingo then asks, holding up an open bottle of Lauren-Perrier in display. Rosinante shrugs. Whatever.

Uneasily quiet, emphasized by Doffy's movements, the flowing of champagne, the clinking of glass. Footsteps, squish squish through the spilt liquor, tap tap on the floor. He takes the proffered drink and sips slowly, observing how his brother plops down beside him with his own glass. Purple glitter in the hollow of his collar bones and fanning out over his chest. His mouth reminds him of their missing mother; plush and warm-welcoming when smiling. _they can't die they can only be forgotten, but_…Rosinante knows that's why Doflamingo puts his bite marks on display, even those his own little brother gave him. _But_. Fifteenth century Spain and a bullet through their father's brain.

He sighs and murmurs, "I didn't want you to hate me." Sideway glance and more, smoothly and with purpose, "I did what I did because it was the right thing. To do."

"Did you know what I was thinking, brother-mine?" He leans forwards as he interrupts him, nestles his fingers around the back of Rosinante's neck, "That you disappeared like mother had. For a long-long time I thought I had lost you. And then you threw me red herring tracks.." His shades slide down the bridge of his nose, his voice is a hiss-a whisper.

"Did you even stop for one _second_, to think what your actions would do to me?" Doflamingo wonders in a sing-song voice. His grip tightens instinctively before slacking, thumb dragging deep-into-his-skin down the beginning of his spine. "And you want me to believe that _you_," deeper-into-his-skin, "didn't want _me_ to hate you?" He chuckles and lets go completely, opting to take a gulp from his champagne.

Crosses one leg over the other, ankles bare between his tight pants and his zebra-striped dress shoes. Responds almost jokingly, "Now I have trouble believing that, _corazón. _Fufufu…"

"What would I gain from lying to you now?" Rosinante prompts back in their-spanish-tongue, turning to face his older brother. Light spills over his profile, over his sharp jawline and straight nose.

Doffy always liked kissing him squarely on the mouth, without decorum, only taking-and-taking. This time is so different his toes curl in his black-purple striped socks, because his older brother grabs his chin between his long deft fingers and leans in so close their lips are a hair-width apart. The glass is in hand, the glass is in shambles on the ground. His brother turns away to finish his champagne, but holds his face head-locked in the palm of his hand, fingertips teetering on the line of his jaw.

"To have appeased my temper, to have stroked my ego... Still." Here, at the beginning of his next sentence, he cocks his head to look at him pointedly, "Stray from my side one more time, _Roci…_" Teeth sunk in, once a bite mark next to his heart. Doffy continues menacingly, "And I might chase down the child instead. This is your only chance, brother-mine."

Rosinante swallows, stares up at his brother with half-lidded eyes. He lungs forwards, feels the champagne soak into the sleeve of his vest, the feathers tickling the underside of his chin as his brother's hand could not hold him, presses his reddened lips to his brother's, mashes them together, leaves his own bloody-red mark. He pulls back without promising a _god_damned thing, because even if '_the love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some stranger who it __**may **__be, hungers for it'_, the image of a wheezing, sniffling red-nosed Trafalgar Law will always tug on his heartstrings. Doflamingo shows no signs of refusal, only grins with lipstick-smudged lips, puts his glass carefully on the floor – the last one standing, and pushes his sunglasses up.

"Would you like an invitation to the after-party, Rosinante?" Here, his brother breaks down in his own brand of peculiar chuckles.

He grabs his cigarettes, stares at the champagne-soaked floor and briefly imagines what would happen if he sets the club on fire. People dancing, drinking, choking, stumbling and crawling. An illuminated emergency exit sign cradled in cloudy darkness. His lighter clicks and sizzles a few time, a flicker-flame, a hand on his knee. Smoke curls along the outlines of his clown-clad face. His brother nudges him with the button of his nose, fists the fabric of his pant-leg; the masks may change but the lies stay the same.

Replies in a raspy voice, "I'd rather go home with you straight-away, Doffy. If you want to.."

His brother grins wolfishly, rubs his nose down a silken cheek, confesses, "I did miss you, my sweet brother."

"I missed you too." It's an automatism to say as much, one impossible to remove after only a century and a half.

"And whose fault is that? Mmmh?" Doffy temperately teases, but that monstrous madness shimmers underneath, needle-pricks through. _Almost again_.

Fifteenth century Spain and a bullet through their father's brain. They wake up together in noblemen's estates or dusty inns. _doflamingo aiming the pistol at their father's head __**after **__their mother disappeared_. Limbs tangled as the sunlight either filters through brocade curtains or falls flat through the windows' glass. _dead-dim eyes staring down at him. _Kiss to his temple, to his forehead, to his chest, down-down-down under his navel, upon his cockhead, two to his inner thighs. _heavy arms falling from his sides. _Making coin and manipulating mortals, playing-pretend in suits and powdery wigs and whitening powder, inspiring poet and broker alike. _blood and brain matter splattered on his forehead. _A sick child, almost dying on london streets, a break-away. _his father taught him how to smile. _Monkey see, monkey do or something like that.

"Let's go home, big brother." Rosinante wheedles, lazily smirking and smoking his cigarette. Placing the palm of his hand over Doflamingo's.

Outside, a hazy street and blurred tail lights. His brother raising his hand to stop a taxi, getting in the backseat, pressed together and their knees bent. Limited space, modernity's greatest fault. Rosinante entertains the thought of stabbing Doffy through the throat once he gets to his place, to put an end to this endless lying and partying and stealing in a vain attempt to be worshipped once more. _they can't die, but that's been disproven before. so. _Teeth leaving indents along the column of his throat, petty precious petnames littered all over the expanse of his neck. When push comes to shove, he's not going to be able to kill his brother_, _this much he realizes when they're half-fucking in the cab; to which the driver only turns the radio louder; some cheesy seventies love song plays. Rosinante should've put that fucking birdcage-club on fire instead.


End file.
